That’s not just because I have flabby arms.
Remember, she famously said "when someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you don’t stoop to their level. No, our motto is: when they go low, we go high".
But it’s so hard, Michelle.
It’s so hard when faced with men who are supposed to be health ministers who choose to play dumb about public health and denigrate the people working in that area when they know those people can’t fight back.
It is lazy, unfair and gutless. If either Simeon Brown or David Seymour turned up to Parliament with an orange spray tan tomorrow, I would not be surprised.
It goes with the territory they have chosen to occupy.
Everything is about choice as they are fond of telling us, never hectoring of course because they would have us believe that’s what these busybody public health professionals do.
Incidentally, the busybody seems to be the government’s tired spin doctors’ latest target — listen to how much busybodies feature in the Resource Management Act reform rhetoric.
Neither of them seems to have a grasp of what public health involves. It is not, as they want us to believe, little more than immunisation.
Do they imagine if we had almost 100% immunisation rates the issue of preventable disease would be solved?
To hear Mr Brown speak about public health officials you might believe they spend all their time thinking up obscure reasons to object to fast food outlets or complain about people selling raffle tickets.
Really?
It is convenient for both Mr Brown and Mr Seymour to jump on this bizarre bandwagon.
Anything to distract people from the daily concerns about the malfunctioning health system and the pig’s ear (and often pig swill) Mr Seymour has made of the school lunch revamp.
According to Mr Seymour, it was the National Public Health Service’s submission on the recently declined Wanaka McDonald’s proposal which was the last straw.
But hang on, why has it taken until now for him to be so incensed about this?
It happened last year and in November the then Health Minister Dr Shane Reti raised his concerns about it.
Presumably, after his views were aired, the director of the service had undertaken to review all potential public submissions from his agency, whether at a national, local or regional level.
Now the outgoing NPHS director, Nick Chamberlain, backed by Mr Brown, has gone a step further, requiring health officials to seek "national level" approval to speak publicly on health matters.
Mr Seymour said he was cheering Mr Brown for "putting those muppets back in their box".
If it is OK for Mr Seymour to label public health officials thus, it is time for me to reveal I cannot resist shouting "Thunderbirds Are Go!" whenever I see him because he reminds me of the puppets in that 1960s science fiction show.
Sorry, Michelle, I know you have said going low is unsustainable and, while it might seem like a quick fix, it doesn’t fix anything long-term.
But these guys don’t get that. They go for the cheap shot and the quick headline. It’s maddening.
Neither Mr Seymour nor Mr Brown seem to understand what was explained in the NPHS submission on the McDonald’s proposal: that health and wellbeing are influenced by a wide range of factors beyond the health sector.
These social determinants of health are the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age.
"Initiatives to improve health outcomes and overall quality of life must involve organisations and groups beyond the health sector, including local government and businesses, if they are to have a significant impact," the submission said.
If Messrs Brown and Seymour understood the role of public health properly, they would also realise that paying attention to it saves money and lives in the long term.
But the government has already shown its disdain for public health measures which would help prevent disease in its attitude to smoking reforms, and its lack of enthusiasm for seriously tackling ongoing issues to do with fast food and alcohol.
Its cynical tinkering with the bowel screening programme shows little understanding of equity.
The mantra of personal choice will be endlessly trotted out in preference to anything which might have real effect because they know everyone is born with equal opportunity to lead a healthy life.
Yeah, right.
It would be good if our health ministers, including Casey Costello, could pay some attention to Michelle’s thinking on being pushed to think about solutions which unite us and what will get us focused on the real problems.
To paraphrase Michelle, go high ministers, please go high. I will try to do the same.
• Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer.
